When I was younger, I would often find myself chasing after friendships that left me feeling exhausted and burnt out. You know, the kind of relationships where you feel obligated to force out a laugh or express a smile that didn’t quite reach your eyes. It all felt too scripted. There was the pressure, both unconsciously and consciously, to laugh at the right time and respond when you feel was needed. Yet, my younger self continued to put on this performance because my fear of being alone was bigger than my craving for a real connection. A real friendship.

Thinking back now, I can’t pinpoint exactly when I started to put on this act, but it was definitely long enough for it to become instinctual. Many friendships I would cling onto felt insincere and inconsequential, always centered around small talk and meaningless conversations. But being in a school environment, they were close and more or less convenient, and I knew that if I was “picky”, I would inevitably end up alone. However, being around friends by proximity was draining. I remember when we would play games of truth or dare or talk about celebrity drama, I would feel alone in a crowded room. I felt like I didn’t belong there. The relationships felt connected by strings and only became more strained as we filled the time with empty words and lack of emotional intimacy.

But I don’t blame these people for my feelings. After all, objectively, I could have made the decision to find new friends or speak up when I didn’t like the direction of the conversation. But I didn’t do anything. I became like clay, molding myself to each person and trying to enjoy their company even though I didn’t truly feel like I belonged. However, I was so insistent on making them like me that I did it anyways.

There were two main reasons for my actions. Firstly, I was scared to find new friends because it looked like the cliques had already formed. It felt invasive and awkward to be intruding on other classmates’ friend groups. Secondly, I was just lazy and didn’t want to make the active effort to change my situation. But that didn’t mean the thought wasn’t always burning at the forefront of my mind, prickling like a thorn splintered into my skin.

But this all changed when I entered high school. I didn’t go to a home school so there was barely anyone I had previously befriended at my new high school. Many students had traveled to high school with their previous clique but the thought of being “invasive” didn’t shackle me down anymore. At first, I was hesitant to approach people but the fear of being alone started to physically hurt my body. If you find yourself spiraling into this feeling, here are three actions you can execute to change your situation.

1. Fake it Till You Make It

It's ridiculous how much our thoughts make our reality. If we think that someone doesn't like us, we immediately feel insecure and act distant before even meeting them. But the great thing about our thoughts is that no one else can hear them but ourselves. Therefore, despite my social anxiety, I made the active decision to feign confidence towards others. Then, take the first step and just go up to one person. A huge part of the process is starting and the rest is just repetition. You may look at this tip and think that you are being an imposter and you aren't really this confident person. Well, that's where the repetition comes in. Just like mastering a language, the best way to improve is by venturing out and using it in a conversation, not practicing behind a closed room. Therefore, at first, you may feel incredibly uncomfortable, but as you go up to more people, the confidence will become more natural.

However, if you are convincing yourself to stay within your shell, then think about it like this. You are getting a head start for your future self. The future self who will inevitably have to make connections for your job or manage people in the future. As much as school is a medium for academic learning, it is also a place to develop our soft skills. There is no legitimate class teaching us these skills, making it the terrifying part that prevents us from making any move at all. But from my experience, going up to someone and starting the conversation is the very first step you must take in order to meet new people. You can’t always expect your parents or other friends to push you into the spotlight and you shouldn’t, because they are introducing you to people who connect with them. Not you.

2. Contribute to the Conversation

The second lesson I learned was that you always have the choice to be a puppet in a conversation. You can either be stringed along the conversation or direct it. When I was younger, whenever I didn’t like the topic or when I felt isolated from a conversation, I never made an effort to change the situation. But I realized that when you actually include yourself in the conversation, it makes a huge difference. It may sound obvious but when you are someone who spent years training your mind to please other people, it feels uncomfortable to speak for yourself. It was once second nature for me to filter my words to fit their opinions, but in the end, it made the relationship feel forced and unnatural. Therefore, the next time you find yourself not enjoying the direction of a conversation, redirect and change the topic. But remember to be respectful as well and not just cut people off whenever it doesn't relate to you. However, if your "friends" often reject your opinion or rarely value it, then that is good sign you should not be around these people.

3. Friendships Are Not Set in Stone

Lastly, don’t be hypnotized into this idea that you are trapped to a certain friend group. I used to feel weird if I befriend people from other cliques, but I learned that it’s all in your head. It felt uncomfortable before because I felt the obligation to befriend the entire friend group but that's not the case at all. I have learned that the best way to befriend someone new is when they are in the same class because it gives you the proximity and opportunity to learn more about them without their other friends tagging along. Personally, I have found multiple meaningful friendships from people outside my clique and thinking back on it, if I was held back by my own hesitation, I would not have grown so many friendships in the four years of high school.

But how do we determine if we are forming a meaningful friendship or if we are just wasting our time?

A. You Shouldn't Feel Drained

Firstly, the friendship shouldn’t feel like an obligation. It shouldn’t feel like a chore. And most importantly, it shouldn’t feel forced. This feeling usually appears in two types of situation. One is when the people around you are constantly ranting about something or when they only look to you as a therapist. It's one thing for a friend to be sad and for you to listen and console them but it's another when that it is all they do. They are sort of like an emotional gold digger (credits to Anna Akana) and your mood will only worsen from the relationship. Secondly, this is a common feeling when you are trying to be someone else. When you are trying to enjoy the conversation, trying to act like you're interested etc. I've done this more than enough times and it has always been around people who I didn't have anything in common with or when they were built purely by proximity.

B. It is Easy to be Vulnerable

This leads right into the next pro-tip which is that when you are developing a meaningful friendship, it should feel natural to be yourself. I mentioned previously that, in middle school, I would often filter my words to please other people or to not create potential tension from my own opinions. But the most important part of any relationship is not being afraid to speak your mind and allowing yourself to be vulnerable. But be careful not to open up too quickly. I have always been an open book and I often share vulnerable experiences too fast. The problem with this is that not everyone can keep a secret, so it's important to evaluate how well your friend can keep an important secret before you reveal it. However, it's also important to note that the ability to keep a secret shouldn't always be an indicator of a good friend. Some of my best friends have spilled my secrets by accident and it's just part of their personality. Which means it's my responsibility to know what I should or shouldn't tell them. Nevertheless, the people who you should watch out for are those who often gossip or talk sh*t about others with secrets that have been told to them. This shows that it is likely this person will do it to you as well and should be a huge red flag.

C. It Shouldn't Be A Competition

Okay. This is going to be my very last point, since I've probably written way more than I first intended to, which is your friendship shouldn't turn into a competition. This usually comes through in a friend who will often mix a compliment with condescension (aka a backhanded compliment) or will try to include themselves into the compliment. It's pretty common for this type of friend to have major insecurities and you should keep that in mind before ranting about them to other people. Furthermore, we have to remember that there is a fine line between our own insecurities and a competition. If we are dealing with our own insecurities, we will most likely twist everything someone says into a brag and would not want them around us. So you have to be careful not to let your jealousy and insecurities push away people and ruin the chance to create meaningful connections.